Notes from New York on the Eve of the Stand for Freedom in Iran Rally

Tomorrow (Thursday September 24), thousands of Iranian-Americans will gather at noon outside the United Nations, in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, Second Avenue and 47th Street, to protest the human rights abuses and fraudulent Presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thousands of Jewish-Americans will join them.

We will also be standing up to condemn the regime that has expressed murderous intent to destroy Israel.

Every New Yorker who can should come to the Stand for Freedom in Iran rally. I will be there, notebook in hand, to speak with the protestors.

The time is past for responsible American citizens to stand on the sidelines and ask, “What does freedom mean?” or to wonder, “Do the people over there really want freedom?” It means the right to speak out, to express opinions. It means freedom from oppressive and brutal government. It means freedom to worship as one pleases and reap the rewards of one’s labors. It means the freedom to vote for one’s government and petition it for redress of grievance. It means government that serves individuals and not the other way around. It is what our Founding Fathers envisioned when they wrote that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is what millions of Americans have died to defend. It is what tens of thousands of brave Iranians have risked their lives for–what some have died for–in recent days. If that is not sufficient proof that plenty of the people “over there” desire freedom, I don’t know what would be.

When the shameless Ahmadinejad comes to our turf to declare, as he did in his speech to the U.N. today,  “Our nation has gone through a glorious and fully democratic election” while the blood of peaceful Iranian demonstrators  has scarcely dried, when this same man declares the intention to destroy another country, the least we can do is stand up for freedom, for human rights, and for an end to passivity in the face of evil. As free people who can do so without fear, we have no excuse not to.

On a pedestrian note, the sidewalks of Manhattan’s East side were an obstacle course yesterday as Iranian-American protestors wearing green flooded the streets in a peaceful expression of solidarity with their Iranian brethren. I am looking forward to speaking with them tomorrow and hearing first hand their experiences and thoughts.

Long live Liberty!

This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on September 24, 2009 at 2:21 am and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: democracy, human-rights, Iran. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>